Iteration is a way of advancing step by step, in successive efforts of testing and adaption. The current world political configuration seems to favor or even necessitate iterative approaches. In the multipolar world system, actors with decisive leverage to bring about “quick fixes” or alternatively ruptures seem to be absent. One area where iteration is evident is security policy notably including US military strategy. The upcoming BRIC Summit in Brasilia is another example. By Michael Liebig

Reportedly, at the 2010 “World Economic Forum” in Davos, the informal motto is “new normal”. However, this catchword is not supposed to mean that there is a return to the “normality” of the “anything goes” decade prior to the financial crisis. Of course, many financial actors in the USA and Europe are indeed trying to go back to the paradigm of financial speculation with no regard for the real economy. However, I venture the forecast that this attempt will fail. Why? Because another “financial crisis” of the the type we have seen in 2007-08 would not only blow the financial system, but would demolish the whole Western societal “system.” And the political class does know that. Moreover, the Western finance class is the prime “loser” of the new power symmetry in world politics.

The BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – are no longer content with being invited to the G20 and G8 summits by the West. They just held their own BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg. And the London Economist has discovered that the BRIC economies have “decoupled” from the crisis in the West. Indeed, they have decoupled, but not just in economic and financial terms.

When Germans hear about the „Big Four,“ they tend to think of the four victorious powers of World War II. But, the term will likely gain a new meaning: BRIC, standing for Brazil, Russia, India and China. All four powers are truly big in terms of population, territory and economic potential. And, along with the United States and the European Union, they also form the “premier league” of world politics.